


smiles in tribulation

by serenfire



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, CA:CW SPOILERS, Happy Ending, M/M, for like 3 seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-04 21:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6675406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Bucky smiles at Steve and one time Steve smiles back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	smiles in tribulation

**Author's Note:**

> Today (hereabouts) marks the two year anniversary of me watching CA:TWS and getting absolutely lost in this fandom.
> 
> It's been a good run. Here's to an even greater run from now to ~~the end of the line.~~.
> 
> Also: spoilers for Civil War within. Pretty much all the spoilers.
> 
> @anyone I know irl: do not read thanks

The first time he’s smiled in seventy years is in the back of Steve’s ‘low-key’ getaway Bug from the mid-50’s, when Steve tentatively kisses Sharon Carter in the middle of their fucking illegal trade off to get their suits and weapons back.

It’s so out of place in both this situation and his fragmented memories of Steve that Bucky giggles. Next to him, Sam Wilson smiles as well. He probably is one of the ones encouraging Steve to ‘get out’ and ‘find someone with shared life experiences’ — probably also one of the ones who doesn’t know the history he and Steve share, the history Steve assumes he doesn’t remember.

The history Steve maybe doesn’t want Bucky to remember.

Whichever.

Bucky hefts his ratty backpack on his shoulders and moves over to the spot behind Steve’s chair so he can finally have some leg space. He smiles to himself and shakes his head as Steve turns around, looking slightly dazed and pink in the cheeks.

He remembers when the smile was reserved for him, seventy years ago but just a step back in his memory as he feels the void of time around him, the two of them in their ratty apartment in Brooklyn sharing warmth and moments just for themselves.

Bucky feels the ice cold of his metal arm against his spine and his smile flickers out of existence. They are, neither of them, who they used to be.

* * *

Bucky takes his sights down from the suited Tony Stark in front of him, every fiber in his gut twisting as he does so. He wants to put a bullet between the man’s knees, just to make sure he’s powerless. Just to ease his conscience.

Steve waves at him, and Tony Stark cracks a joke. This doesn’t help his trigger finger.

So Bucky climbs up the stairs with them, hefting the machine gun in his arms. There’s tension in the air, so thick he can smell the heartbeats in the sweat.

He remembers this facility, remembers it like all the memories he tries so hard to hide, the memories that won’t go away, that stick with him like glue. 

And then there’s Steve’s hand on his shoulder, a comforting presence anchoring him.

Bucky looks him in the eyes, and in that moment, Steve communicates something wordless to him — something not an entire pep talk from Captain America could do. There’s comfort in that look, and warmth.

Bucky wants to lean over and kiss him, because this might be the last time he ever sees Steve. Might be the last time he ever breathes a free man, or a live one. He wants to tear the breath out of Steve, but he can’t, not now.

Because Steve hasn’t given any indication that he wants it, too.

So Bucky just smiles at him, shrugging the hand off his human arm.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Steve asks in clarification, eyebrows furrowed, obviously concerned about him.

Bucky makes sure his smile is clearly noticeable, clearly broadcasting that he is indeed okay, as okay as he could ever be.

His Kevlar vest feels too tight around his ribcage, too itchy, and his trigger finger begs to be squeezed. Bloodlust crowds the edge of his vision, bloodlust brought back by the goddamned code words.

He squeezes the thoughts and memories back, but the urge to kiss Steve doesn’t go away.

“Yeah,” Bucky rasps. “I’m okay.”

* * *

There’s a cap over the fizzing remains of his metal arm, and he doesn’t have phantom pains yet. Might not have them ever.

The doctors in sterile lab coats take his vitals, his blood, his temperature, everything — poking and prodding and not looking him in the eye. Bucky can’t tell whether it’s because he’s a terrorist or because what they’re doing weighs on their consciences.

As for himself, he’s sick with worry and dread because — they’re putting me back in I can’t let them do it I can’t let them freeze me I have to stay awake I have to do it for Steve — but Steve is the person who suggested this in the first place.

Or maybe Bucky suggested it because Steve looked guilty as fuck the past twenty-four hours, hovering over him and never quite touching, never quite speaking, always trying to protect.

Well, fuck protection. Bucky Barnes can protect himself.

But now it’s showtime, and the cryo chamber is right there, just stuck in the middle of the med bay, where everyone can see. There are less restraints than HYDRA’s, of course, since Bucky is supposed to go through with this willingly.

Is going to go through with this willingly.

He lets himself get strapped to the cryo tube, and watches as Steve comes in. He looks even guiltier than before.

“Hey,” Bucky says, smiling softly and reaching out to touch him while there’s no glass to separate them. He might be the last human Bucky ever touches. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“I — I know you are,” Steve says, and fuck, he looks even sadder, grips Bucky’s hand even tighter. “We’ll find a cure, and figure out how to make your mind safe again. Don’t worry.”

Bucky smiles even harder at that, as if to convince Steve this with his sheer power of will. “You do that,” he says softly, and thinks about how Steve used to look, when he was skinny and short, when Bucky was unquestioningly and undoubtedly in love with him.

A doctor approaches them. “Excuse me, Mr. Rogers. We need to start the cryo process now.”

Steve nods and backs up, dropping his hand from Bucky’s. And Bucky’s all alone, standing up, strapped in, the glass slowly closing around him.

Steve’s voice echoes in from beyond the glass, from beyond the rise of Bucky’s heartbeat and the shaking of his own thoughts. “I’ll be here,” he says. “I promise. You won’t be in there forever.”

“Maybe I will,” Bucky says, and off to the side someone starts a countdown. “But hey, if we never see each other again, I need to tell you — I remember most everything, Steve. I remember you. I — I remember us, too, and if you don’t want that ever any more I can live with that, but please, please tell me you do.”

He doesn’t hear Steve’s answer. The cryo gas rushes in through his ears, and Bucky closes his eyes, prepares for the eternal burn of ice.

* * *

He comes out of cryo like waking up after a bad trip, groggy and trying to stay grounded in his body but getting sucked back into the memories. The memories never dissipate, even in cryo. They just stagnate.

He remembers his name, after a few minutes of thawing. Bucky. His name is Bucky.

He’s sitting on a white table in a med bay, an IV stuck in his arm, wearing the same scrubs he fell asleep in. The light shining in the windows is the same consistency that was when he was put under, so he’s thinking — a year? Enough for the season to come back.

He mumbles, “How long was I out?” The words come out as slurred, disjointed, like he’s truly coming back into his body.

“Twenty-five minutes,” Steve growls from his left, and Bucky turns to look at him. Steve’s face is set, jaw tight, and he looks angry but not guilty anymore.

“Oh,” Bucky manages to say, hope collapsing in upon itself. “So you haven’t found a cure to my brainwashed mind.”

“In fact, I fucking have,” Steve says, angry and insistent, and pulls himself a chair next to Bucky’s bed.

From the doorway, T’Challa frowns at Bucky. “I warned him this was a bad idea,” he says conversationally.

Steve takes Bucky’s hand in his own and looks him deep in the eyes. “You don’t need to be protected from anything you do unconsciously in the night if you sleep in my bed,” he says, very serious. “I am more than strong enough to take you down.”

Bucky blinks. “Say what now?”

“If you want to sleep in my bed, Bucky Barnes, I can make sure you hurt no one while you’re not yourself. I mean, you can go back into cryo if you want, but please. Please take me up on my offer.”

Bucky’s face splits into a grin. “Are you propositioning me, Rogers?”

Steve fixes him with a stern, serious glare. “Absolutely, Barnes.”

Bucky reaches over to him and grabs Steve’s chin, and meets their mouths in a kiss. “Too damn late, Rogers,” he whispers into Steve’s surprised moan. “Too fucking late. I mean, you kissed Sharon Carter before you kissed me.”

Steve looks properly abashed at that. “I’m sorry,” he says earnestly, “but I was chasing after you for two years, and I thought you completely forgot me; I’m not a saint — and I only knew that you knew when you told me five seconds before going under!”

Bucky kisses him again, mainly to shut him up. “Okay, Rogers,” he grins again, “I’ll give it to you this time. But only this time, you hear me?”

* * *

It’s two in the morning when Bucky wakes up, instantly alert. In assessing his surroundings, this time waking up is not like others. He’s not sweating, or feverish, or hallucinating, not trying to use his nonexistent arm to throttle Steve, not reverting as the code words slip into his mind without his input.

He’s lying in bed, half tangled around Steve, feeling their breaths intermingle, chests moving gently against one another. Steve’s head in buried in his pecs, their legs wrapped around each other, and as Bucky lies still and tries to make out shapes in the darkness of the room and the queen-sized bed, he feels Steve gently tracing shapes on his shoulder blades.

“Steve,” he whispers, fighting the urge to laugh like he’s lost the urge to control the emotions bubbling out of him. “Did you accidentally wake me up?”

Steve freezes in his arms, and Bucky runs a finger down his back in return, feeling smooth and unmarred skin.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, and laughs into Steve’s hair that smells like Wakandan shampoo and home. “I usually wake up about this time, anyway.”

Steve sighs into his chest. “Have I messed up your sleep schedule this much?”

“Hey,” Bucky says, and tilts Steve up to look at him in the almost nonexistent light. “You’re not messing my sleep up, you’re waking me before I can possibly do any damage. And I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“But I didn’t mean to wake you up this time,” Steve mumbles into Bucky’s scar-marred skin. “I just wanted you look at you.”

Bucky smiles at him, projecting his calmness and unaffected nature. “I don’t care,” he says simply, holding Steve closer. It’s so strange that just a week ago he was dressed in a pockmarked long-sleeved shirt and a ratty backpack, packing newspapers on the walls in a safe house. Just a week ago, he was on the run.

Now he has a home. Now he has his family back.

He holds Steve tighter around him, grinning into the smooth skin.

“Yeah,” Steve says, muffled, “but I want you to get your sleep.”

“There’s time for sleep later, yeah?” Bucky says, with an edge of something more in it.

In an instant, Steve frees himself of Bucky’s embrace and crawls over him, leaning down to suck him in with a kiss that would be bruising, before.

Oh, how Steve used to bruise him.

Steve pushes Bucky down on the bed and pillows, hands reaching out and sliding down his arms, his chest, a wicked sharp grin on his face.

Bucky smiles in return.

“Yeah, Barnes,” Steve says, reaching down to nip him again, “we can sleep later.”

**Author's Note:**

> SO, just saw Civil War for the second time, and someone who had been in my seat before me had left ABC gum where I put my leg. I still have sticky residue on the back of my knee. #ReasonsIDon'tLeaveTheHouse
> 
> here's my [tumblr](http://www.trans-reyskywalker.tumblr.com)!


End file.
